Product Description

As warlords in 16th-century Japan, the players attempt to secure a position of dominance for their respective clans. The most successful Daimyo at the end of the game will become shogun.

To succeed, a player will need not only to control as many provinces as possible, but also to develop his realm by building castles, temples, and theaters. The player who manages to build the most buildings in each of the 5 regions will be rewarded with valuable bonus points.

Product Information

Language Requirements:
Game components are language-independent.
Manufacturer's rules are printed in multiple languages (including English).
This is an international edition or domestic edition of an imported item.

Product Reviews

SHOGUN by Queen Games (not to be confused with other Shogun, Samurai, Samurai Swords games)
Designer: Dirk Henn, based on Wallenstein

SETUP: 10-15 minutes
PLAY TIME: 2-3 HOURS
PLAYERS: 3-5, dynamics works well with all numbers
TYPE: Strategy planning, war game

SHOGUN has replaced Risk, Axis and Allies, and all other board war games of medium to
light complexity for me. I will not even touch those other games when Shogun is
around. I would love to see expansions or other versions of the game, using the same
game mechanics which are brilliant. A World War II version, North America, Europe,
Fantasy, Space, etc. would be fantastic.

The board is Japan divided into smaller territories in the 16th Century during the
Sengoku Jidai period, an era of warring samurais, ninjas, daimyos, Shogun, and the
Emperor. Each player chooses one of the main clans that are battling to rule Japan.
Players setup relatively quickly receiving territory and placing troops down on the
board. Small colored cubes (not fancy pieces) are used as army groups and placed
according to the chart on owned territories. They are used in battle with an ultra
cool tower mechanism which surpasses the use of dice or other random battle deciders.

BATTLE TOWER: the tower is loaded with armies and farmers which can help or hinder
your battle progress. There are unique slats that capture the cube, allowing some to
fall through while trapping others. By dropping your cubes and the opponent's cubes,
they cause a chain reaction which releases cubes into the bottom tray like a slot
machine. Based on the colors, the dominant one wins. What makes it great is that if
you lose, it is because your cubes are still in the tower which will give you an
advantage in the next battle, eventually evening out the odds, but still providing
enough of a random battle factor. No one wins based purely on luck or rolling all 6s
or 1s!

Every season, players must preplan all their actions, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter,
and just like ancient battles, Winter is a non battle/build phase, and dedicated
purely to feeding people and preparing for the new season. During the main three
seasons, you must battle, build, recruit, and collect gold/food. Another unique
aspect, you can only choose one territory for one action which makes planning and
predicting your opponents' actions crucial. Do you use a key territory to build,
produce, launch a battle, or recruit new troops, you must choose only one per
territory, you can not do it all and so your multiple actions are spread out among
your territories. I love this aspect as it avoids the big slow dice-rolling slugfest
battles, and avoids hoarding in one spot like the mega armies of Risk or Moscow's
last stand in A&A.

Each territory has unique features shown on its deed card, how much gold it can
produce, how much rice it can produce, how many buildings it can sustain. By building
castles, temples, and theaters, you gain valuable victory points, beware if you lose
your territory, all your buildings are destroyed. Another aspect which is great, only
the first five actions are revealed, the next five actions are hidden. You must plan
all your actions and in which territory before you can even act. Therefore the game
is not based on act, react, act like Risk, if you misplan your actions, you will be
crushed. All ten actions are planned before anyone goes, 3 building actions, 3 army
recruit actions, 1 produce gold, 1 produce rice (feed your troops or face revolts), 2
battle/war actions. You can opt to skip actions as well. Once you plan all ten (or
less) actions, the actions are resolved in turn order, you also bid to see who goes
first and receive special bonus modifiers. ie first action may be 1) all receive rice
2) all build castles 3) all build temples 4) recruit or move soldiers 5) go to war
6-10) ??? you flip to reveal those actions one at a time. Of course there is much
more to the game, and only by playing will you get a true feel for the game.

The game is beautiful, elegantly simple but strategic, relatively easy to learn, and
great replay value. The cost is high, so look for a used copy or try
it out at a convention or a gaming club. If you do purchase, then you should love
Risk and desire much more planning and challenge, if you love games like Samurai
Swords, Fortress America, Axis and Allies, Battle Cry, Conquest of the Empire, you
should be fine. A personal favorite and highly recommended.

by
Quardlepleen

You will never play Risk again

April 02, 2008

Not so much about war as it is about building. You still need a good
defense, and knowing when to attack is the key.

The most novel bit is the cube tower. Instead of rolling dice for
combat, you throw both opponent's cubes into a tower. Whoever has the
most cubes come out the bottom wins. War is costly in this game;
rarely does the winner come out unscathed.

This is a clever way to mitigate bad luck, because if you DO lose a
lot of cubes in the tower, they will probably come out the next time
you fight.

The other great thing about Shogun is the game only lasts 8 rounds. So
there is no possibility of 2 players going back and forth trying to
wipe each other out.

When I first read about this game, I had to have it. I had never
been able to find Wallenstein, the game it was originally based
on as it is now out of print. When it arrived, I was not
disappointed, it is domination on a grand scale -- even the box is
big. The board and the bits were wonderful, but the sheer
number of them put off everyone I tried to talk into playing it. It
didn't help that the rules came in multiple languages thus
causing the box to never fully close.

After tossing the rules in languages I didn't need, I got down to
setting the board up and running through the rules by moving
the pieces so I could see how it worked. I figured leaving it set
up would cause friends and family to want to sit down and try it
out; unfortunately, it just scared them even more. All those
wooden blocks and the many action points and decisions to
make caused people to dismiss it as a complex war game, which
it is not. Defeated, I finally packed the game back up and kept
trying to interest people in playing it for the next six months
without result.

I finally decided to just play it by myself, planning and executing
strategic movements in a four-person game that took four times
as long to play as it would have with other players, and I loved
every minute of it. Certainly not the best way to play the game,
but it helped me see how to break through that initial fear of the
game and understand the strategy enough to explain it to others.

It really isn't anything at all like a war game or even a simulation,
although the two-sided map does show the different historical
shogun territories. The actual clashes that occur have more of a
Risk quality to them, but seem much more fair. I know others
have criticized the cube tower that makes the outcome of the
clashes more random, but that is really no more random that the
Risk-factor of rolling dice or the extra bonus of additional armies
gained from matching army cards. Shogun doesn't allow
increases of occupation any higher than six and when battles
with adjoining territories happen, you have the unknown factor
of residual cubes in the tower that can benefit either player,
along with the possibility of peasant farmers (green cubes) that
can join the defender to keep the land or revolt as well. Battles
are never predictable this way and it keeps the strategy
interesting.

The game is played in eight rounds, representing two years of
four seasons (winter becomes a scoring round where players try
to amass victory points while also satisfying rice quotas for the
peasants in their territories). The game is constantly shifting
with auction elements to gain the territories you desire; blind
bidding to establish turn order; multiple steps to keep your
territories supplied, happy, and cultured (with No theaters,
temples, and palaces that increase the quality of life and your
victory points). It is actually a wonderfully engaging game, even
if I did play all the turns in a solitaire version.

Even as I played the game alone, I found myself seeing the
interplay that keeps players trying to manage their own
possessions as well as anticipate outside attacks and plan for
expansion of their own. It makes for a fascinatingly complex bit
of gaming. And, so as I ran around the table, dropping cubes in
the tower and laughing manically at my vicarious multiple
victories and defeats, I managed to attract attention to the game
that merely setting it up had failed to do. My family began to ask
questions about it and showed some interest in this unique
gem.

I have a feeling Shogun will be hitting the table again soon with
some newly recruited players... and I can't wait! Until then, I
will save that last half a star on the rating for the pleasure I will
have playing this winner with others!

I picked up a copy of Shogun a few months ago and have had
the chance to play it several times now. I think I had a similar
reaction as another reviewer on this forum.

The first thing you notice about Shogun is that it is beautiful. I
really mean it. The game box, the cards, the board, the battle
tower, and even the simple little wooden blocks - they all look
great.

I enjoyed looking at Shogun, but for the first several games, I
was totally lost as to the strategy and spirit of the game... Who
cares what order the actions happen in? Why can't I see all of
the actions that are going to happen at once? Why am I
spending all this time planning my turn and then so little time
actually playing my turn? Why can't I just smash my opponents'
armies and then build my shrines, theaters and castles?

Then I realized what this game is really about. It's not a
wargame at all, despite the "feuding warlords" concept. It is, as
another reviewer here has stated, a game of "agonizing
choices." You'll want to take several actions in each province on
every turn - build armies, raise taxes, confiscate rice, construct
buildings, battle - but you are only allowed to take one. In
addition, you only have six (real) turns to establish your domain.
And the fact that you have to commit to taking certain actions in
each province before each round of gameplay begins

I have two complaints about this game, though: First, playing
time is spent just as much on planning your turn as actually
carrying out actions. Some people might like that, the strategic
thinning, and it is interesting to try and guess how your
opponents is going to play their round. But it can also be very
frustrating if you are just beginning the game and get so
little "action" for so much time invested, or if you have one player
who is taking a lot of time and making everyone else wait. If you
have experienced players, I'll bet you could play a perfectly fun,
relaxed game in 90-120 minutes. If not, the game is going to
take 2-4 hours.

My second complaint is that the rules are not clear as to how
farmer revolts work. I'm still not sure how exactly that goes
down, even after several games. Otherwise, the rulebook is
pretty well-written.

In terms of board games that I have played before, I'd say
Shogun is most similar to the Eagle Games version of Civilization.
But Shogun is, in many ways, much better because it gets rid of
all the math calculations and the murderously long hours you had
to commit to playing it. Apparently, Shogun is actually a
re-themed version of a very popular game called Wallenstein -
never played it, never heard of it.

If you like a feudal Japan theme you will probably enjoy Shogun.
Just give it a little time to grow on you.

by
Tom

Not for everyone

March 01, 2013

This is one of my brother's favorite games but I can't stand it. I've played it 3
times now and just recently was talked into trying it again after over a year since
my last playing. I very quickly remembered why I don't like it. The planning stage
is torture for me. There are SO MANY choices with SO MANY unknown variables. And
you have to commit to all your strategic choices prior to the season beginning
without knowing the order of all the actions, not always sure if you will have the
funds to complete all the actions that you've committed to, and of course you are
not privy to the intentions of your opponents other than the general knowledge that
they aim to disrupt your plans and invade your weaker territories.

We had a group of four players and the planning phases were really dragging the game
along as we all took our time trying to figure out this seemingly impossible
probability and statistics problem. So we enacted a house rule to limit the
planning phase to 5 minutes. This sped the game along but led to some very foolish
or miscalculated mistakes, some proving very costly. I was playing with a very
aggressive group of attackers, so very few of my territories were safe from
annihilation. This led to me being forced to commit important actions to very
vulnerable territories, which inevitably led to some crushing rounds.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing a bad review because I suck at this game. I'm
as good as anyone else in my group and finished 2nd in this last playing. I just
don't care for the game. It moves at a snail's pace and the planning stages are the
epitome of 'analysis paralysis'. The game took our 4 player group over 3 hours.
I'm sure we would get faster with experience but I don't think I'm going to invest
any more hours in this game. It's ran its course for me. I have far too many fun
games standing by to waste another evening on this one.

To its credit, the board is beautiful and the tower mechanism for battling is
intriguing and clever. Some people really enjoy this game but I'm not one of them.
There are so many better games out there that this one would not even make my top 30.

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